Saving Planet Ultima

A young missionary couple shoots for the stars... (UNFINISHED)

My wife Carrie and I marched up the stairs of the budget space cruiser, hauling our luggage. She clutched a tablet loaded with Christian reading material; mine had a Bible, along with a couple of new spy thrillers. Our reading tastes were not highly dissimilar, but Carrie had more spiritual dedication than I could muster up. The thought of sitting in a cold, drafty spaceship with nothing but curmudgeonly commentaries to pore through was even more anxiety-inducing than the prospect of freeze-dried space food for the next three days. That's assuming our ship's wormhole entry was smooth. For the price we'd paid, I was expecting a bumpy ride.

I paused my rumination long enough to wave my phone under the boarding checkpoint, and we took our seats on the good ship Navistar.

“Here's hoping our mission is fruitful,” I said. “It isn't every day a young couple like us secures passage to Planet Ultima.”

“We've met all the requirements,” Carrie responded. “You're exactly the rising lawyer The Firm is looking for, and I can teach English to the children of Ultima. I can't wait to share the gospel with them!”

“Be circumspect about it. You know Ultima has a one-world government and a state-sponsored religion.”

“Yes, Jim, and look how godless they are. That AI they worship is a tool of the prime minister to keep the people in line.”

“Indeed, but what can we do to change it? I'm not about to get us sent to the mines because we attempted to convert people away from the official religion.”

“We'll be careful. It starts small, with house gatherings and lots of prayer.”

“Right now I'm praying we get there safely,” I remarked as the spaceship gave a sudden lurch sideways.

“God will preserve us for His purposes.” Carrie patted my hand.

I marveled at her calmness. If only my faith was as strong as hers. Growing up, I'd wanted to be a pastor, but my parents had convinced me a law career was more profitable and safer, as Christianity was fast becoming outdated and frowned upon in the space age. I stared out the porthole at the rapidly shrinking blue marble of Earth. Would God be with us on the other side of the galaxy? Maybe the leaders were right: Christianity was strictly an Earthbound religion, not intended for the spiritual needs of an intergalactic population. But Carrie was determined to bring the Word of God to the people of Ultima, and I wasn't about to let her do it alone.

We made it to Ultima without incident, watching in awe as glowing steel cityscapes unfurled beneath us. The planet’s Eastern half was fully developed, while the Western hemisphere was partly cultivated and partly left wild. It was “The Gem of the Known Universe,” a thriving, precisely balanced civilization built from scratch. The fact that we were no longer on Earth became obvious when I glanced at the peachy sky, scattered with fluffy orchid clouds. It looked like a perpetual sunrise. The Sun itself was a cool, dull red, as we were further away from it, swinging along the fringes of the galaxy. The atmosphere was artificially modified with additional carbon dioxide to maintain a higher temperature than would have been expected at such a distance from the Sun…

“Sir, your companion device is ready for you.”

A brusque voice interrupted my nerdy reverie. We sat in the immigration office, with our luggage at our feet and virtual paperwork lined up on tablets at the table. The man who had spoken handed me and Carrie each a handheld screen resembling a smartphone.

“What are these?”

“Every Ultima resident is assigned, at birth or arrival, a unique lifetime AI companion. The more you interact with it, the more helpful it will be for you. Some of the wealthiest people here are those who have trained their AI partners to run crypto mining operations or other forms of passive income for them.”

“Oh, interesting,” I responded cautiously.

He droned on further, telling us how these AIs developed unique personalities according to their assigned human, growing up and evolving with them from infancy. It sounded rather uncanny to me; indeed, I wondered what the true purpose was of giving everyone on the planet a personal chatbot. When he showed us how the devices could read and store our vital signs, helping both diagnose potential medical issues and encourage healthy living habits, I began to get an inkling of the motivation behind it.

As we walked out of the immigration office, with our citizenship papers digitally approved and loaded into our AI devices, I turned to Carrie.

“You think there's room for God in such a highly technological society?”

“God is always with us. As long as humans have hearts, He can reach them.”

“I pray you're right.”

***

As we settled into our budget apartment, we quickly realized Ultima was set up to discourage human interaction. All mundane tasks such as grocery shopping, bills, repairs, and laundry were handled by robots and AI of one kind or another. Both my law practice and Carrie's tutoring were work from home jobs. There were no physical churches to attend, only a weekly state sponsored blessing ceremony which could be “attended” via a virtual reality headset.

“This isn't going as I expected at all,” I said to her one morning after the first month. “We've hardly met another human being, let alone had an opportunity to share Christ with anyone. I don't see how we can make an impact on society at this rate.”

“People weren't designed to live in comfortable boxes,” Carrie observed.

She was sitting at the kitchen table with sheets of paper and markers. I wondered vaguely where she got them. Art supplies weren't really a thing in such a digitized world. If one desired to create, there were any number of art apps capable of recreating the experience of paint and ink on paper.

“I feel more like an imprisoned guinea pig than a human,” I ranted, pacing back and forth. “This is hardly an advanced society!”

I scowled at the apartment door. All comings and goings were tightly monitored, and anything that wasn't an errand required an explanation to be entered into the records kept by the AI “companions.”

“Here, Jim.” Carrie held out a sheet of paper. “Let's post these up outside.”

I stared at it. She had drawn up an elegant notice: “prayer meeting, Sunday afternoon. Come to worship and hear a word from the Lord.”